Wednesday 22 May 2013

12/13 Blues Season in poetry


In late-June did young Clark arrive,
Nice record at Galpham perhaps on his side,
But August the Blues picked just one point from three,
And sat in the drop zone uneasily,

September improved us, or was this quite so?
3 strong performances, one horror show,
Blues hit for 5, no spirit or fight,
We’re simply rolled over, by Barnsley tykes

A win at top Brighton, was this the reply?
Well 4 games no wins, but Paladini to buy?
The comeback at Millwall, and win at Leeds proved,
There was yet life, in languishing Blues,

With inconsistency November arrived,
We’d falter in one half, the second we’d thrive,
A hectic month for the boys in blue,
Of seven wins we picked up just two,

Christmas came of a similar style,
The only good note was struggling Vile,
One win in five was no happy new year,
We drowned our sorrows in mulled wine not beer,

A sad sight to see was Pack on the floor,
But we soon came to life, with a win at Turf Moor,
We followed that up, Burke found his niche,
A win over Forest, and judas McLeish,

In training Zigic was giving no spark,
In media outed, he was by firm Clark,
In the match after, Blues again swept aside,
By Zola’s Watford, that team seemed to glide,

Eighteen games now without a clean sheet,
But back-to-back, they came as quite sweet,
Next game we’re mullered, became it quite dull,
At promotion chasing Hull,

Fear not though as Easter drew nearer,
Our relegation safety was clearer,
Three straight wins and we’re out of the dark,
With 4-0 thumping of Selhurst Park,

Post this result could play-offs be on?
Stranger things have happened, it wasn’t yet gone,
Defeat to the Dingles put sharp end to that dream,
As Blues prepared for mediocrity,

Two wins, three draws, and the one loss,
We played the remainder not giving a toss,
For the job was done, the Blues were safe,
To fight another year, in exactly the same place,

Now the task over summer it seems:
Offer new contracts to those who could leave,
Get atmosphere back, get rid of the moaners,
But more importantly, change the owners.

Monday 20 May 2013

West Brom 5-5 Man United: a 'neutral' viewpoint


For yesterday afternoon, my Baggies-supporting cousins had a spare ticket for the West Brom-Man United game. Seeing as it was Sir Alex and Paul Scholes’s last ever match, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I generally think the majority of Blues fans have a good-natured attitude towards West Brom, myself included. I meet up with a few West Brom fans in the pub before games, and we think of them as our pestering local neighbours, more than our enemys. As that chant to the tune of Led Zeppelin goes: “I wanna destroy… Villa and Wolves (but I’m not so bothered about the Baggies, because they’re sort of alright)”. Having said that, I lied about saying I was ‘neutral’ going into the game, I was secretly desperate for United to thrash them, so I could have a bit of a dig.
I decided to have a 50p pre-match bet inside the ground, on Manchester United to win and van Persie to score. Sensible. But apparently you had to collect your winnings online rather than at the end of the game, so in the end I opted out. It’d be a bit tedious to claim a pound online. Once I got in the stands, I began to really appreciate the sheer creativity in the West Brom fans’ lyricist. 2 or 3 of their chants involved the repetition of the word: ‘Albion, Albion, Albion’, I think one of them was: ‘You are my Albion’, and, just for a bit of a change, one of the songs was: ‘We are the Albion’. Presumably that one was composed in response to the opposition chant: ‘Who are ya?’. Genius. One of their chants though, was: ‘We know what we are, we know what we are, (no, they didn’t say Albion again) pride of the Midlands, we know what we are’ That one I didn’t enjoy so much.
Both teamsheets looked a little bit surprising. Lukaku wasn’t starting for West Brom, which seemed like a strange move seeing as he was their top scorer. But United’s team, despite being Fergie’s last, had a very much renovated, forward-looking feel to it. Jones and Evans had been confirmed at the back, although Rafael wasn’t playing, so I was intrigued to see how they’d fill the right-back position. Carrick, Cleverley, Kagawa and the questionable Anderson were all starting, as well as Buttner rather than Evra at left-back, and Chicharito partnering RVP up front.
Ferguson’s strategy seemed to employ a slightly Italian-style tactic, with shades of Juventus. Valencia and Buttner were used as wingbacks, with their work ethic to get up and down the flanks, whilst Carrick played very deep. When United had the ball, he would intermittently drop behind Jones and Evans for them to go slightly wider, allowing the two wing-backs to get further up the pitch. The plan seemed to be that when West Brom won the ball, the players would try to clam in together instantly, so Carrick would start to close down, the wingbacks would drop back and the centre-backs would move back inside.
For the first half hour, this worked a treat and Manchester United were extraordinary. They looked simply unplayable. The vision, speed and mobility in that team just overawed West Brom. Because of Carrick’s deep protective role, Cleverley and Anderson had the freedom to ball-chase, and provide numberical advantages wherever the play was, and pass the ball short, to create that extra inch of space. Shinji Kagawa’s intelligence in the ‘false 9′ role was key too. He would drift towards either side of the pitch, where Valencia or Buttner were, and then quickly run inside, dragging a marker with him. This left the wingbacks with room for a one-on-one duel against their fullback, who they would always beat for pace.
Kagawa’s opening goal was created simply by a clever dart to the near post. Many Baggies fans with me were cheering as the ball looked to be going out of play, but Hernandez’s acceleration allowed him to keep it in, and his pinpoint cross for Kagawa was timed perfectly. Their second was not dissimilar to that, as Valencia put in the cross for Hernandez, whose timing of movement  was of the same killer nature as Kagawa’s, to head in at the near post. At that point I leaned over to my uncle and said, with a rather wry smile: “well, enjoy your afternoon, then”. I really wish I hadn’t, now.
United continued to dominate after that in the same fashion, and 20 minutes later, a short sequence of passing focused United’s play towards the right-side of the middle, before Cleverley played a reverse pass to Buttner unmarked on the left, and he fired in for 3-0. The Baggies did managed to grab a goal back before half time, at which point they put on Romelu Lukaku for ex-Blue Liam Ridgewell. Although I knew Lukaku had undoubted quality, I thought the loss of Ridgewell at left-back would give Valencia the room to tear the Baggies apart down the right. But it was West Brom who scored the first goal of the second half, and Lukaku had a placed shot that seemed to slip through the hands of Lindegaard, who had a torrid afternoon, and into the United net.
Just a few minutes later though, United went up the other end and Valencia drilled a ball across for the prolific Robin van Persie to score his 30th goal of the season. Giggs was then brought on, and it seemed telling that he was the one to provide a goal for Javier Hernandez towards the end, in a game that looked to be the perfect finish to Ferguson’s reign. At 5-2 Paul Scholes was brought on, and received a standing ovation from myself alongside most of the 26,000 West Brom fans. An incredible player. A part of me was hoping to see a goal for Paul Scholes, just for the icing on the cake, but the events of the next few minutes were a bit disgruntling, and very uncharacteristic of Manchester United.
Well, what wasn’t uncharacteristic was a terrible tackle from Scholes on Billy Jones 2 minutes on the pitch, which earned him a booking. He might miss the next match. But United, from a very commanding and comfortable position, began to look sloppy and complacent at the back. Before they even got a goal back, West Brom had a number of guilt-edged chances, including Jonas Olsson missing an open goal, which gave me the somewhat reassuring feeling this wasn’t going to be West Brom’s day. But United failed to learn from this, and gave away two scrappy goals in quick succession. Phil Jones didn’t have the positioning, and Jonny Evans didn’t have the strength to combat Lukaku’s massive aerial threat. Michael Carrick dropping deeper, instead of bringing calmness to the defence, caused confusion, and it led to a number of ricochets in the box, so the United defence weren’t able to clear their lines. Another problem was their defence wasn’t compact enough in regular play, and they pressed too far up the pitch, when they should have rested on their laurels and dropped deeper, to just hit the Baggies on the break. But their high-line allowed Lukaku to run onto a through ball, and slot past Lindegaard for 5-4.
Ferguson then brought on Rio Ferdinand for the final few minutes as an experienced head in defence, but there was another goalline scramble, and Lukaku poked home on the rebound to tie the scores up. It was extraordinary. Either side could have nicked it at the end as well, and it was a game that finished 5-5, that could have finished 8-8! I got a little bit of stick for smiling to myself when it was 5-2, and my uncle said: “So, do you think you supported the wrong team growing up then, Gabriel?”
To which I replied, very quick-wittedly: “no, not really.”